Hello. Blue Cross? Goodbye.

I watched Keith Olberman's Countdown program tonight with great interest. The entire hour was devoted to a Special Comment about the American health care crisis... and what a crisis it is.

He painted a very bleak but realistic picture of the insurer/insuree relationship, not much of which was news to yours truly. Without any doubt the American insurance industry is broken and we, the public, pay through the nose to "fix" it. In case you missed it you can find the whole show on iTunes.

The reason there's been no successful health reform until (fingers crossed) now is simple: money. That's why Democrats are seemingly so timid about the process of passing this particular bill.

You see, Democratic congressman aren't whole-heartedly supported by the insurance industry or the oil companies or big business in general like Republicans are. If things go wrong, and there are inevitably going to be hiccups that Fox News will trumpet loudly, Democrats are out of a job come the next elections.

If, onthe other hand, a Republican puppet, I mean, congressman loses his seat he simply becomes a K-Street consultant, an oil-company lobbyist or gets a job as a commentator on Fox. They'll still get handsomely paid by the same masters as before, no questions asked. Must be nice to fail upwards.

One of the last things Mr. Olbermann said really struck me as a good idea. He suggested that the only real way for the American people to regain control of our health system is to drive the insurance companies out of business. And we, the people, can do that by refusing to pay our premiums. Starve the fuckers out.

And I agree.

I've honestly been thinking along the same lines lately but it was fantastic to hear someone with a national presence say the same thing. Out loud. That's a brave man.

Canceling my policy won't be a major step for me. I have good family history, no kids, I take good care of myself and, to be honest, my policy with Blue Cross, one of the major detractors of health reform, is a hunk of catastrophic crappola. For all the good it's done me over the years I may as well be auguring chicken innards.

Yeah, I know I'm just one little guy but a bunch of little guys can make a big difference. Let's fix the health system for our kids. Let's fix it for our country. Let's fix it for us.

For the near future I'll be simply banking my premium payments. Hopefully it'll come in handy later on when, and if, a single-payer system becomes available.

=lefty=